Body and Soul

And what if she tried again with him…and it worked? Then what? I would be replaced, and Will wouldn’t look to me for help anymore, wouldn’t look to me for anything. Wouldn’t smile at me, wouldn’t hold my hand. I’d be worse than useless to him; I might as well not exist.

A yawning chasm opened inside me, and this primal sense of possessiveness welled up, spilling over until I could hear the blood rushing past my ears, pulsing with my racing heartbeat, something I’d never experienced before. Not with Chris, not with anyone.

I reached into the haze, feeling my hand sink in and co

And that’s when the cold breeze, the one I’d been half expecting only moments ago, swept through the room, blowing my hair back and freezing her in place, like oil trapped in ice. I’m not sure which of us was more shocked. Especially because I couldn’t see her expression.

Holy shit.Somehow, I was still Will’s spirit guide. I didn’t show up at his side at my time of death anymore, but it seemed my other capabilities were present and accounted for.

My first reaction was an internal leap of joy. I still had a purpose, and I didn’t have to be all self-sacrificing and try to convince Will to find a new spirit guide— notthis chick—so he could be safe.

But that emotion wore off quickly, because, as usual, without Will actually present, my spirit-guide defense capabilities were limited both in duration and strength.

The blurry spot in front of me wavered and shimmered. Then she sucked in an audible breath. “You froze me!” She sounded horrified.

Get out, Alona. Get out now.My overdeveloped sense of self-preservation, slightly rusty from not having been used much in the last month or so, kicked in with a vengeance.

I started to back up toward the door, my heart pounding. I’d blown it. She had had no idea who I was, and I’d just handed it to her. If she put the pieces together, all the consequences I’d ducked would be landing solidly back on my head. And now she was pissed, on top of it.

She followed me. “Will Killian’s spirit guide should be the only one with that power,” she said suspiciously, and I wished desperately that I could see her face. “But she’s gone. Unless she’s not.”

The ghost lunged forward suddenly, her outstretched arms flashing in the mist, and I stumbled out of her way, but my left foot tangled in the corner of Misty’s quilt. I felt my balance shift, and I knew I was going down.

My backside hit the ground with a teeth-jarring impact, and she was right there, standing over me. Her hand locked on to my arm, and in that second, I could see her clearly. Long red hair hung over her shoulder, a pink bikini top showed through her cutoff Señor Frog’s T-shirt. A spring-break bu

Holy crap. This was Spring Break Girl. She was exactly as Will had described her.

Her brown eyes widened, and I wondered if she could see me, too. Not Ally. Me, Alona.

“You didn’t disappear,” she accused. “You just found a better deal.”

I weighed my options. Continue lying, or fall back on the bravado that had served me plenty well in the past? She wanted something; that much was clear. And, as I knew all too well, people who wanted something, anything, were vulnerable to machinations that made them believe they might actually get it.

So, easy choice. Time to change it up. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but…well, as much of the truth as would help me.

I straightened up as best I could, ignoring the nervous fluttering of the heart in my borrowed body. Mind over matter. “Yeah, I did,” I said simply, calmly, as if this were no different than someone confronting me in the hall at school on something I’d reportedly said. Public, teary outbursts had been rare, but still something I’d grown to expect, on occasion. The person with the cooler head—me—always won. So that was it—I just had to stay calm.

I pried at her fingers on my arm. “You mind?”

She released me, ending my ability to see her clearly, and sank to the floor next to me, or at least, that’s what it looked like. The blurry space she occupied hovered above the floor in the vague shape of a person. “How did you do it?” she asked.

I ignored her. “Who are you?”

“Erin,” she said impatiently. “Did you kill someone?”

My mouth fell open. “What?”

“I thought about that. Like, maybe I could slip in as the other spirit was leaving, but since the only people we might actually be able to hurt would be ghost-talkers who would see us coming…” She heaved a disappointed sigh, as if she were talking about not being able to get concert tickets instead of, you know, murdering someone.

“No, I didn’t kill anyone!” I struggled to my feet. “What is wrong with you?” I demanded. So much for staying calm.

She rose with me, and I caught a glimpse of flashing dark eyes. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with any of us? We were cut off before our prime! Right before things started getting good. I want to feel the wind on my skin again. I want to go swimming in the ocean.”

“Yeah, because there’s a lot of that happening in Illinois,” I muttered.

She ignored me. “I want that first kiss with a new guy again. I want to dance and feel the music pulsing in my chest. I want to be alive and to know it, you know?” She sounded wistful.

I might have felt sorry for her except for the fact that she was obviously crazy with a capital K, and—unless I missed my guess—mad powerful. You couldn’t go around haunting people (for reasons I was still unclear about) and thinking about killing others without a serious store of energy to draw upon. Negative activities and thoughts like that would have caused a major drain and wiped out most spirits in the process, but not her, obviously.

“I want to be alive…like you,” she added, her voice taking on a darker edge.

This girl is going to kill me to get what she wants.It couldn’t have been clearer than if she’d said it out loud. “We need Will. He has to be here,” I said, trying to sound as though I didn’t care, even though I could feel myself trembling. It was a stall tactic, yeah, but I didn’t want to be alone in this anymore. “There’s this whole ceremony and everything.…”

“He can’t do anything,” she said dismissively. “And even if he could, he’s a total straight-edge, believe it or not.” She snorted. “He knew about you and didn’t even tell me.” She sounded hurt.

I clamped down on the panic threatening to overtake me, and made another effort to sound reasonable. “Seriously, Will is the only one who can—”

“No, you’re going to show me how.” She grasped my arm, tighter than before. It hurt, and I flinched away from her. Which was a mistake. Something inside me shifted, and I felt loose in my own skin—well, my borrowed skin.

Erin inhaled sharply. I could see her again, thanks to her grip on me, so it was not hard to follow her gaze and figure out what she was looking at. She was staring at her hand on my forearm, her eyes almost buggy with surprise.

And with good cause. Her hand was sinking into my—no, Lily’s—flesh.

Oh, no. No, no, no.A cold stab of fear shot through me. I knew where this was going.

I jerked back from her, but all that did was pull her with me, her hand now embedded in Lily’s arm. Just as mine had once been.

I reached up with my free hand and shoved her shoulder as the expression on her face changed from surprise to glowing delight. “You don’t understand,” I said through gritted teeth, struggling to put distance between us. “It’s a circuit. We need each other. I can’t survive without her, and she can’t live without me.” I vividly remembered Lily’s blue face and her gasping for air when the Order had tried to separate us. It had been one of the most horrible things I’d ever seen.